Lauren jumped on an amazing offer she found on Office Depot’s site and combined it with a coupon code to slash a ridiculous $179 off a desk and hutch. She waited a while to find out if the deal was too good to be true even though she got a confirmation email, then discovered to her disappointment that the company canceled her order.

She writes:

I have spent the entirety of today dealing with a situation with Office Depot pertaining to a desk I purchased yesterday. Using a link off of Office Depot’s website, I was able to get $179 off of a desk and hutch combination. This was a live link from their site that I clicked and applied the coupon. Then, I used another coupon for ten percent off. This brought the desk/hutch combination to about $36. Too good to be true? Maybe. But it still took my money and said I could pick them up in the store later that day.

Today, when I had not gotten my confirmation e-mail, I called the store and was told that they would be in later that day. I checked my order status and it said “In Progress”. Hours passed and I still never heard anything. I checked my order status online again. It had been cancelled, but no one told me that. I called customer service and they told me that it had been cancelled because I used an expired coupon. I said that the coupon was on their site, and I had just clicked the link.

They said it had expired earlier in the week. I inquired into how that was possible. Also how it was my fault? I did some research on the Web and found that other people had picked theirs up without issue. Some had had problems. They said they it didn’t matter if anyone else had gotten it because no one should have. I wanted to know how it was right to allow certain people the access to the deal, while excluding others. She said they could do that based on their terms of service. I also wanted to know who was planning on informing me about the cancellation of my items, or if they just expected me to continue waiting. I kept asking for a supervisor until I got to Dale at Executive Customer Relations. She said there was nothing they could do other than give me 10% off of the current price of the desk. I said that was not acceptable because this was their mistake, not mine. They said there was nothing they could do. She did call me back and say that she could give me all of it for $179.99. She also e-mailed me to that effect. I have attached both my confirmation and the e-mail that they sent me.

Office Depot’s customer service is horrendous, and this is just another example of it. They made the error, they caused the problem and the confusion, and then they are saying that it wasn’t their fault and there’s nothing they can do. Sorry, i don’t accept that. They are hurting as a company, and this is why. I will never, ever shop their again.

Unless Office Depot made a pricing mistake it’s tough to side with the company. Do you think Lauren is justified in her anger?

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